Pivoting with Purpose: Rick Cosgrove on Designing Amazing and Joyful Event Experiences

Pivoting with Purpose: Rick Cosgrove on Designing Amazing and Joyful Event Experiences

From The Purpose Hunter by Matt Berrafato

October 9, 2025 · 39 min

About this episode

Rick Cosgrove shares his journey of resilience and adaptability in the event marketing industry.

In this episode of "The Purpose Hunter," I sit down with Rick Cosgrove, the CXO and President of Agency EA, a global brand experiential marketing agency. As a fellow alum of Notre Dame College Prepin Niles, Illinois, Rick shares his remarkable story of resilience and reinvention. From pivoting out of finance and economics into architecture, to navigating a tough economy as an intern and ultimately discovering his true passion in event marketing, Rick's journey is a testament to the power ofadaptability. He has built and leads his companies by empowering employees to thrive. During his tenure at EA, he structured and launched the Creative department, growing it to a 40+ person team. Over the years he’s had the pleasure of building experiences with Intuit, HubSpot, Hilton, Autodesk,Monday.com, Samsung, Caterpillar, McDonald’s, GE, Google and Target. Rick believes wholeheartedly in what Eleanor Roosevelt said, "For our own success to be real, it must contribute to the success of others." In 2019, Rick co-founded Sô Labs , a watch brand that believes telling time should be about fun(k) not just function, through layers of color combos and strange names. Rick…

People in this episode

Host: Matt Berrafato

Guest: Rick Cosgrove

Topics covered

  • event marketing
  • resilience
  • adaptability
  • career pivot
  • employee empowerment
  • family values

Keywords

  • event experiences
  • career change
  • marketing
  • leadership
  • family
  • resilience
  • Notre Dame

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Agency EA, Intuit, HubSpot, Hilton, Autodesk, Monday.com, Samsung, Caterpillar, McDonald’s, GE

Places: Chicagoland area, Niles, Illinois

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